This is another rather unusual moment in 90s pop music, mostly because the members of this group aren’t really humans. Zig And Zag are a pair of alien puppets who beamed down from the planet Zog one day. They made their debut on Irish TV in the late-80s. They soon gained fame with viewers, and became popular enough to have Number One singles on the Irish chart in 1990 and 1991.
They then moved to the UK, and they repeated their success when they featured in lots of memorably amusing moments on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast along with Chris Evans. Again, their popularity reached the point where they thought that it might be a good idea to release some singles in this country. They decided to enter the race for the Christmas Number One in 1994.
Well they already achieved this in Ireland, so why couldn’t they do it again, although they were probably aware that after the sensational success of Mr Blobby the previous year, that couldn’t be topped, and the achievement could never possibly be as relevant again. But there were a lot of songs in the race, and the bookmakers put them at the same odds to succeed as “The Hokey Cokey” by Captain Sensible.
So in December 1994 “Them Girls Them Girls” was released. Many noted that this sounded rather similar to “I Like To Move It” by Reel 2 Real, which had been a huge hit earlier in that year, although this’ll be because this was actually made by the same producer on the quiet. But this never really challenged for the top, and reached no. 5, so at least this became their first and only Top Ten hit single in the UK.
Zig And Zag returned in July 1995 with “Hands Up! Hands Up!”, which reached no. 21 (chart-toppers Rednex were rumoured to be involved in this), and probably realising that they had pushed the joke as far as they could, this was also their final hit single. They did remain hugely popular for the rest of the 90s though, going on to appear on various other channels including MTV, where they were always guaranteed to do something unpredictable.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 